EMMA AMOS

Early Years

Emma Amos was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1937, where her parents owned a drugstore. She began painting and drawing at the age of six and attended segregated public schools before entering Antioch College in Ohio at sixteen. Amos spent a year abroad at the London Central School of Art, studying painting, printmaking, and weaving, and later earned a diploma in etching from the same institution in 1959. After her first solo exhibition in Atlanta in 1960, Amos moved to New York, where she worked as a designer and weaver, and pursued a master’s degree in art education at New York University.

Emma Amos Artworks

Emma Amos’s practice is defined by her innovative combination of painting, printmaking, and textiles, often integrating African fabrics, weaving, and collage into large-scale, unstretched canvases. Her art explores the intersection of race, gender, class, and privilege, using expressive colour and layered materials to create visual tapestries that question the norms of Western art and society.

Early Work and Spiral Collective (1960s)

In the 1960s, Amos’s paintings depicted scenes of Black middle-class domestic life, while her involvement with the Spiral collective—alongside Romare Bearden and Norman Lewis—marked her as the youngest and only female member of this historic group. Her early works, influenced by Abstract Expressionism and Colour Field painting, began to incorporate themes of identity and representation.

Experimentation and Feminist Engagement (1970s–1980s)

Amos’s practice evolved to include weaving, quilting, and illustration, notably for Sesame Street Magazine, as she balanced motherhood and art. She became active in feminist groups such as the Heresies Collective and Guerrilla Girls, deepening her engagement with issues of race and gender in art. Her Athletes and Animals series from the 1980s juxtaposed Black athletes with wild animals, addressing stereotypes and perceptions of power.

Mature Work and Major Series (1990s–2020)

In her later decades, Amos’s work grew increasingly complex, with series such as Falling exploring personal and societal anxieties, erasure, and the Black experience through dynamic, abstracted figures and layered symbolism. Her signature technique of bordering paintings with African textiles and integrating multiple media became central to her visual language.

Select Public Commissions, Awards and Other Accolades

• Ralph David Abernathy Memorial, Ralph David Abernathy Memorial Park, Atlanta, Georgia
• Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Award, Georgia Museum of Art (2016)
• Board of Governors, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture
• Professor II and Department Chair, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University

Exhibitions

Emma Amos has been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions at major institutions.

Solo Exhibitions

• Emma Amos: Color Odyssey, Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, travelling to Philadelphia Museum of Art and Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute (2021)
• Black Bodies, RYAN LEE, New York (2017)
• True Colors: Paintings of the 1980s, RYAN LEE, New York (2016)
• Emma Amos: Paintings and Works on Paper, Herndon Galleries, Antioch University, Ohio (2004)

Group Exhibitions

• Soul of a Nation: Art ivn the Age of Black Power, Tate Modern, London; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville; Brooklyn Museum, New York; The Broad, Los Angeles (2017–2020)
• We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women 1965–1985, Brooklyn Museum; ICA Boston; California African American Museum, Los Angeles
• Spilling Over: Painting Color in the 1960s, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
• With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972–1985, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College

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Ocula | 2025